


New York Series

by Halfspell



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-06
Updated: 2008-07-10
Packaged: 2018-12-27 12:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12081360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halfspell/pseuds/Halfspell
Summary: This is a set of stories all based on the fact that some years after episode 513, Brian finally wises up and does the most nonsensical thing he can think of.  Go to New York after a certain blond boy.These stories are all tied together with their lyrical writing style.  There are other stories in this series, but none of them have the same musical cadence that I tried to put into this one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

  
Author's notes: These aren't really chapters. I just can't think of what else to call them.   


* * *

part one  
  
  


It's been years since I last saw him. Since I last heard his voice. It wasn't any waking choice either of us made, it just happened. People drift over time. It happens to everyone. We're all like iceburgs, moving slowly in cold water. Sometimes together, sometimes not. I still get the occasional email, though, but that's once in a blue moon. They're really impersonal, too. J, blah blah blah, B. Like a memo or something from work. It's easy to believe he doesn't even send them. That the cold and impartial universe spit up a memo to tell me the anti-virus has been updated or something.

Most days I don't even think about him anymore. Everyone at home has stopped mentioning him to me and I stopped asking. Iceburgs drifting along in the cold night.

At night, though, it's different and I can't delude myself as much as I can when the sun's up. There's a weird sort of truth in the dark places, whether it's in the corners of my apartment or the corners of my head. Waking to find my arms and legs wrapped tightly around a pillow and swearing I felt something wrapped around me in the sweet seconds of not-awake-not-asleep. I've even had guys complain about it. Going to bed with me and waking up alone because I'm too busy hanging on to whatever the pillow is.

Even nightmares have taken on a new aspect for me, bittersweet insteady of simply scary. I'm not sure which is worse. They start out in terror but before they can really get going and really make me wake up yelling and thrashing, a familiar hand cups the back of my neck in that way that makes my knees loose and my stomach tighten and my dick hard and pulls me against a strong chest that I'm sure I know. I can hear a familiar heartbeat and feel fingers stroking through the hair at the nape of my neck and I can't see a thing though I'm trying like hell. It's longer now, my hair, mainly because I don't want to spend the thirty bucks to get it cut, but these fingers stroke through it, all of it, and I still wake up upset because in all the years I've been dating only one person's done that to me in just that way. Crying and horny all at the same time. If that's not fucked up, then I don't know what is.

On the cusp of sleep, sometimes I feel like I'm falling. It takes my breath away when it happens and usually it throws me awake. These days someone catches me before I can wake, swings me around and back up again and I know the hands on mine, the fingers gripping and tossing me up again. Someone. I'm deluding myself again. It'd be easy to say that it's a dream man and not real, or that it's someone I'm going to meet later in life or an angel watching over me. But I'm not that stupid. It smells like him in my dreams, feels like him. I haven't thought this much about Brian Kinney since I first met him. I'm drowning in him. I want it to stop and I don't. I want to catch a glimpse of his face and I don't. It makes me scared, because dispite the fact that things are going well for me and I've managed to get myself into a nice one-bedroom on the top floor of a nice rowhouse in queens, I know I can't afford the serious help I'd need to make this stop.

And what if it does stop? Do I really want it to? I feel like I'm falling again and I can't find grounding nor breath nor sanity and I don't want it to stop. I don't. It's filling my ears and eyes and mouth and hands and I'm dizzy out of my mind and painting half naked and three am because my sleep has been shit lately. But my work's never been better. I'm falling through a slow orgasm that takes hours and hours to build but makes me just as stupid and lost as the conventional type. And I can't do shit about it except paint through it, listening to the radio to try and remember who I am and occasionally bumping into the canvas, open mouthed and breathing hard. Sometimes the radio helps. It's so banal, it's hard to imagine anything more grounded, but tonight it's barely a hint of a distraction.

When there's a knock on my door I actually groan, like the hard sound's touching me in all the right places. It's probably the neighbors wanting me to turn off the radio. My hands are slick with paint and I know it's all over me but I don't care. Even if it does take me a while to actually get the door open.

For his part he doesn't ask stupid questions like if I'm alright or if I'm alone. Instead he reaches his arms through the doorway and catches me because I'm falling again. I'm falling again and clutching at him and there's paint all over Brian Kinney's face and jacket and it doesn't matter because he's kissing me and kissing me and kissing me.

Somehow, we're on the floor and the door is closed and locked again. We're both covered in paint but the old hardwood's firm under my back and he's concerned and solid above me. I'm flying high in pleasure's sharp and painful teeth, in all those dreams and he's here. He still doesn't ask, though I know he wants to. I answer him anyway with a smile.

"Sunshine." It's a revenant breath, a prayer, and hands are in my hair again, stroking, the way I need it, the way he needs to. Tomorrow's soon enough to catch up and scold and laugh and fuck but tonight's about paint and falling and prayer. He's falling too, I can tell, but I've got a good hold on him, so it's alright.

And I know he's going to quietly take over half the rent, even if he's raking in the cash. Even if he can afford Manhattan, he's quietly picking queens. Quietly learning how to make love, how to live, how to slow down and enjoy everything. For a second I wonder if he's had a heart attack or something drastic like that to make him stop and take stock of things like this. And when I look into dark and shadowed eyes, eyes that look like they haven't seen sleep, real sleep, in long years, it comes to me. Yeah. A heart attack. Something like that.

  
  


  
  



	2. Chapter 1

Part three  
  
You can see the long, smooth curve of his back outside the window. He's perched out there, on the fire escape, skin rippling in the cold and smoking a cigarette. Why he's smoking out there and not in here, you don't know, but it gives you the chance to study him, or at least his back, without the threat of him going all bashful on you. Might be why he does it, now that you think about it. But he's out there and you're watching and all around him are the remains of attempted green thumbs in flower pot graves and the dirty sunshine that only New York can offer is wreathed in his hair. And you've never seen him be more beautiful.

A knee-jerk reaction berates you for that thought, denouncing it as stupid sentimentality, but it's too early in the morning and you're far too comfortable to pay it much attention, so it fades to silence and lets you be.

The smoke he exhales is nearly the same color as the half overcast sky. It fades into the sky, the stonework of other buildings nearly as it leaves his mouth. His breath made this city for you. And you're sleepy enough and besotted enough to actually believe it for a second or two and actually love New York for it. Love Queens for it. You've only been here a week and already you can't leave. Won't leave. Oh, you'll visit other places, but this city, and more importantly Justin, knows you've finally come home. And home is right here.

Only a week ago you came through the door and caught him, falling in the grip of something terrifying and sublime all at once. He was covered in paint like blood, if blood could be in yellows and oranges and blues, and you could believe it, believe it came from him, out of him, through him and over his hands. Divine suffering and ecstacy all wrapped up in one. He was bleeding art all over himself and you, but it didn't matter because it was you and you were there, falling with him. And instead of pulling him out of the sublime, he pulled you in, somehow, and you understood. You rolled with him in pigmented blood and you really understood. The art _was_ Justin, and that night the art was you, too.

These are gilded moments, you tell yourself, golden as his hair (there goes another mental kick you're ignoring), long and soft and scented with his art. They tumble past, every single one sweet on your tongue and you wonder since when did not being sensible feel so damned good? And in such a soft way. Gentle as an exhaled breath. Just as powerful, too.

You came a week ago, after a hellish night on the town, where every blond seemed for an instant to be him and all you could think about was a smile of heart stopping sweetness. So you left the town, the clubs, the bars and went home. All the way to New York. With nothing except the clothes on your back. He laughed at you for that one, delighted, and you laughed along. But he made space for you easily when you came home after shopping, dropping bags like confetti on your way to the bedroom.

Later today you've got appointments to look at spaces all around the city, to decide which building will hold your New York branch, but there's time enough later to worry about that. Right now there's just the smooth curve of his back, lean muscles twisting now towards the window and arms lifting to let him back in.

The air he brings with him is sharp and slightly smoky and his skin, when you let him back under the blankets, is cold and prickly with it. So you curl around him, protecting him from the cold's sting and he sighs in sublime pleasure at the feel of warmth. Your warmth, specifically. You simply soak in his chill, his presence, his breath until the cold finally gives up and goes away.

Later, perhaps half an hour, probably less, the warmth'll expand and wrap around you both, unfolding into a different sort of heat, where all the contact in the world is never enough and you're both writhing against each other and desperate to drink one another. But for these few peaceful, gilded moments, this, here, now, is enough.


	3. Chapter 4

Part four

  
He's painting, out in the living room. You can hear the radio going, occasionally the station changes, mid-song sometimes. And every fifteen or twenty minutes he comes into the bedroom, where you are and sticks out his right hand and you take it and massage for five minutes or so. Till the art pulls him away and off into the other room again. There's paint all over your hands from his hands, paint all over the phone from your hands. Paint on your laptop, too. It's a huge fucking mess and you don't care. In fact, you're so calm about it that you're going through real estate listings. And fielding phone calls.

"I'm listening, Mikey. I can hear you. I'm not ignoring you, but I want to." You went through his finances, after he admitted to you that he was terrible with anything resembling a number and wasn't really sure what was going on with the banks, and you discovered that he could afford half the mortgage on someplace bigger. And you both need someplace bigger. He laughed about it, tripping over his things. He laughs a lot, lately. You love it. Love it. "I'm listening, Mikey. Something about I suck, as if that was news." Sharing the mortgage makes him laugh. You could outright buy the fucking place for him, gift wrap it, stick a big fucking bow on it. But you don't. Instead you get quotes on mortgages. You understand why, too.

"You so are not! You're doing something stupid, I can tell."

"What am I doing that's stupid?" Your fingers flick the laptop's touchpad, stroking it gently, sorting through town houses and row houses, two and three stories. Three stories tickles your fancy, but you want to ask Justin about it first. The idea of a third floor turned into a studio for Justin, a shrine to his art, someplace almost holy for the sublime ... it just seems right to you. Big enough so that you can lay on the floor stretched out on your stomach, chin on your fists and watch him paint. And be there, of course, every fifteen minutes for a quick massage. 

"You're in fucking New York, that's what's stupid! You're still in New York! You just fucking drove off!" The edge to Mikey's voice makes you smile. Justin's back and and you're tipping your head, wedging the phone between ear and shoulder so you can take his hand and massage his wrist again. He's edgy, wanting, needing to get back to the painting. It was catching him up, whirling him around. Almost like sex, but there's no jealousy, no worry, nothing but an odd intensity that makes your heart beat harder, makes the blood sing like paint in your veins. So you just stroke fingers and thumbs over his skin, easing pain and giving him another fifteen, twenty minutes.

"It's the first sensible thing I've done in my life, Mikey. Stop yelling or I swear I won't talk to you until fucking december." Justin's already pulling away and you're left absently rubbing at green paint on your palm. He's too distracted to look at houses right now. Too tangled up in his life's blood. You can't help but crane your neck to watch. It looks better than any drug you've ever taken, what's catching him up. It looks fucking amazing. You can't help but watch.

"You've lost your fucking mind!" He sways when he paints, back and forth, watching the canvas like he's waiting for it to talk to him. Maybe it talks to him. You wonder what it says. Maybe you know, but it's a scary thing, hearing it speak. Right now he's shifting from foot to foot, stirring something in a plastic cup and watching the canvas. Listening to it. 

"I know. It feels good." It slips out before you can think about catching it and once it's out, you find that you don't mind it as much as you thought you would. It feels really good. It also brings Michael to a stuttering halt. You've got to admit that feels good, too, finally shutting his tirade up for a precious moment or two. Justin was lifting his brush and swaying forward and you tip your head still further to watch. The real estate listings were forgotten for the moment. 

"You're .. you're not even listening to me, are you." 

"I'm listening, Mikey. The nutty professor must not be home. He's your reasonable side." Smiling a little, you manage to go back to the listings. You're curled up on the bed, by the window with the laptop in front of you. It's incredibly comfortable. And you're coming to terms with the fact that comfortable is a very good place to be. Coming to terms that you of all people, Brian fucking Kinney, is happy with comfortable.

"You're smiling. I can hear it, you're sitting over there and smiling about moving to New York." 

"So come and visit, Mikey. We're buying a house. If we can figure out which one we want." Maybe ... this one. Your fingers flick over the keys, trail over the touch pad, bring up the listing, the specs, the tiny details, the pictures. Maybe.

"Wait, the connection's got to be bad. I could have sworn I heard you say that you and Justin are buying a house."

"Don't make me repeat myself, Michael." Justin drifts back, eyes slightly glazed and shaking out his hand before offering it to you again. When you take it, he leans against you and lets his gaze drift over to the computer screen. Since he's looking, you point to the one you've had your eye on and he's reading, you can tell. This massage lasts longer than the others. "Hi, Michael," he murmurs and reads. Your fingers knead his wrist, his palm, smearing paint like blood between the two of you. "Brian, I like this one. Can we see it?"

"You're really going to stay in New York." The hurt's there, the disbelief, the, yes, resentment. You were praying that Mikey wouldn't do this. Knew he would do this regardless of any prayer you may have made. He'll probably get over this. But right now he hurts and won't listen. He's determinded to be hurt. He's been like this since he was fourteen. 

"God, Mikey." You're exasperated. And you can't help it. Justin's hand is slipping from yours again and he's rolling a kiss against your temple before the painting reclaims him again. "Don't do this to me. Just fucking get your ass on a plane and visit. Or drive. Rent a big fucking van and pile everyone in and come here. Then we'll take a turn visiting you. I'm in New York, not fucking China." He's sighing and you're sighing and everyone's sighing. 

"Don't you dare call me pathetic. Cause you're the pathetic one."

"I wasn't going to." The listing was sent off to the real estate agent. They'll see the house today, hopefully. 

"Then what were you going to say?"

"Nothing. This is just something I had to do. In a place where I don't have to prove anything to anyone except myself." How can you explain? You just want to be alive. You close the laptop then and push it away with your feet, hoping like hell that Justin likes this place and you like this place and that the pictures do the place justice. The blankets are warm and soft under your belly and you stuff a pillow under your head. From this position you can see him paint, watch the dance his art brings him through by the tips of his fingers and the tips of his toes. 

"Brian --"  
  
But you don't want to deal with this anymore. Mikey's just being strange and unhappy because there's a ton of change going on and going on with you and it's frightening him. You wish you could explain why it's so right for once, but he's not in a place where he'll listen to anything. "Mikey, talk to Ben and then call me back." So you cut him off. "I'm gunna go. Love you." And the phone's being dropped so that you can focus your entire attention on the doorway and what's through it. Oh, Mikey'll call back tonight, you know, full of apology for freaking out all over you, and you'll nod even though nods can't be seen through the phone. And he'll understand and listen, finally, and probably marvel to Ben how much his best friend has changed. ..has grown up.

  
  



	4. Chapter 5

Part five

  
Brian's downstairs. I can hear him. He's shuffling around down there, poking through rooms and imagining furniture in corners and things on the walls. Hopefully different colors on the wall, too, because all this beige is sort of annoying. I know up here it is. The first thing I'd do is paint the walls up here. Up on the third floor. Brian's down on the second. But I have to admit, I'm not really looking around, though I should be. I think the moment I stepped into this house I loved it. The funny thing is that I think he knows it, too, but he still makes a show of looking around. Of making sure he's getting his money's worth, but I don't think there's any question of us not buying it. So I'm up here while he wanders, leaning on the railing, listening with my eyes closed. The old wood was once varnished, but it's all worn away and it's smooth under my hands and cheeks. I love it. I love the way it smells.

It isn't the palace he had once bought, but then I don't think either of us wants a palace these days. Palaces are for enclosing royalty in. They're completely unconnected to the rest of the world, and I don't want that. He doesn't, either, I think. I feel. Brian told me he just wants an office to work from home sometimes and a bedroom with my horrible, comfortable bed in it and a kitchen. And a workspace big enough for him to stretch out in. That last request touches me intimately, more so because it's casually said, a simple statement, but incredibly powerful. I wonder if he knows just how much it affected me?

Nearly as much as the mortgage affected me, really. And from the look in his eyes when he started talking about mortgage rates one random day, he knew what he was asking for. God, he knew and I told him mortgages didn't make much sense to me but I wanted to do it anyway. His face, his face was just .. beautiful. Like when a painting's telling me it's finished. Like that first night when he came to me. Just beautiful. I could let myself fall into that memory, make love to it, spend myself with it and lay sated in its arms afterwards.

"Hey Sunshine." Called down from below. My eyes pop open at that and he's standing down there under me, peering up at me with amusement all over and around him. Under his shiny shoes. So I answer him with a smile. Brian was posing in one of my favorite images. Unconsiously, but it's still there. In one of his suits, four button to accomidate and accentuate his long frame and a long wool coat on top of that. All long lines and leanness and crisp edges. I have a painting like that. But his coat is big enough that I can burrow into it when I feel like it, hiding from the world or hiding like a kid, waiting for the world to find me. He looks like he could move mountains just by asking, like he could save the world, if he wanted to. Except for the look on his face. Open. Delighted. Alive. And the smudge of paint over his cheekbone doesn't take from it at all.

"I love it, Brian. Can we buy it? I know we have to send in an offer, but I'd like to."  
  
"Me too, Sunshine. I was hoping you'd like it." Because he loves it, too. His voice says as much loudly declaring in soft tones. The old wood floors and wood banisters suited him perfectly, nearly as perfectly as Armani. No, more perfectly than Armani. He was basking, down there, face tipped upwards like he was soaking in the sun. He loved New York. Loved this place. ...loved me.

I suppose some part of me's aware that this is the honeymoon period, or something. But I can't find it in me to worry much. He calls me Sunshine, like he's discovered it's my real name. It's pretty funny, actually. Makes me laugh, makes my work laugh. That's what they said about my latest and greatest. It laughs. It's exhuberant. Explosive. Yeah, explosive like an orgasm. The image makes me smile wide and close my eyes and drape along the railing. The house feels alive to me. Not cold and dead like a lot of new places feel. Sterile. Not this place. And I'll paint an abstract orgasm to hang right where it'll be seen, right when someone walks through the door.

I'm expecting a comment for this, my silly behavior, a question, something other than the soft and breathy laugh I do get and it makes me smile wider. My face is going to split in two starting with my cheeks. I can feel it. Can he hear me thinking, I wonder. The shape of my thoughts hanging out in the air like butterflies or something. Something bright and light, the way I feel these days. Granted, I feel slightly crazy, too, but that seems to be alright, expected even. Artists are a fairly loony bunch, I'm told.

"It'll feel even better in here once we start moving things where they belong..." Maybe he can hear them. His voice is drifting away and he's walking the floors again, measuring them against his stride, learning the pathways from one room to the other. Where things belong. Not where we want them. Where they belong. Sometimes things don't belong where we want them to be. Now there's a secret I should figure out how to paint. Or how to explain to Michael, at the very least. How to accept the happiness and perfection of an object finally being placed where it should have been all along.

The shrill voice of Brian's cell phone interupts my wandering thoughts and pulls me upright again. He's answering it and speaking to someone, describing the place in between his footsteps. It's a little echoey here, without furniture and rugs and life's junk to soak up the extra sound, but he's not trying to hush himself, which is fine for me. Must be Michael or Debbie or someone like that. I hope it's Debbie. She understands that we're not gone away. Just a little out of reach. Just take a step or two and we're there, right in front of their faces. Besides, I want them all here, very badly. To show them everything.

"I know. I can understand that." The echoes from Brian's voice decend like snow in the house's waiting air, and I step away from the rail to explore my own domain again. My studio. Airy and big and with the feel of my first studio about it, for some reason. Maybe it's the age of the place, the wisdom in the walls. They're smooth under my fingertips. Just waiting for me. The rest of the house is our nest, the both of us, but this place, this floor, it's mine. My domain, my baliwick. I sort of always thought of Brian's work in the same way, for him. His domain. His baby. But there's a place for him here, too. And, really, I'm begining to think I need him here, watching me paint and massaging my hand. Maybe he can set his office up here, too. It's big enough.

Three's a holy number, and I'm on the third floor. I have to remember that.

"I love this place." This time I'm saying it for the house's benifit. No one else's. I'm crazy, I know, whirled up and spun around and pushed down different paths with my own hands. That's crazy. That's fucked. I love it. I'm a lunatic, it's great. Later, not too long later, too, we'll go and sign paperwork and buy this place. Sign a contract to love the house as long as it loves us. And I'm ready to do that. It seems like a really big and really important step in my life, even though it's not the first place I've ever had. 

But, by now I'm ready to sign my life to this place so it's time to go collect Brian and usher him towards the real estate office. It's terrible, but then there's no way to get places like this without dealing with the nuts and bolts of the system. And Brian's so very good at tweaking nuts. "You ready?" he asks when I find him. I answer with a soft affirmative sound and stretch my hand out towards his. It's like this, fingers knotted loosely together and palms touching, that we go.


	5. Chapter 6

Part six  
  
He's been out here a while. Standing on the landing like a lost and confused little boy and looking up into the open space that is Justin's studio. Brian's office is tucked up in that space somewhere, too, but from here all it is is art and the tools for making it. Not that you can tell all that in the dark. But he's been out here a while. You can see the sharp edges of his face but nothing of his expression and the only sound being made is the quiet gasps and heavy breathing of Brian and Justin, up there, fucking and trying to be quiet about it. Breathy laughs from one or both of them, " _Oh God, yes, more, please_ ," the occasional soft groan. It'd bother you less if you knew Michael was getting off on it, but he wasn't. He was just standing there. Staring.

Not that you blame him, since they really are quite beautiful together like this. On their knees, one behind the other, with faint moonlight picking out their edges. They move well together, like they've choreographed it, memorizing the steps before hand, practicing, well past opening night and into the christmas matinees. Hands moving, two sets, gliding like ice on hot skin and not the least bit awkward, what you assume is Justin's head, waggling back and forth until it's caught in the net of a kiss. God, you'd be incredibly turned on, if you weren't so worried. It's art, like this. Very erotic art. Everything they do is art. This visit's taught you that much, at the very least. It's all a dance, and they dance for each other. For no one else. It makes you think of the stupid little things you do for Michael every day. The stupid things he does for you. Not nearly as elegant as ... as this, but just as deep, you'd like to think.

The simple way that they invited you all in, the way Justin laughed and cried and hugged everyone repeatedly when everyone fell out of the van and into the house, into their home. The utter laughing chaos. The stupid gossip, the news, the rumors. The disbelief in Brian's eyes when the freaking van pulled up. As if he never expected Michael to take Brian up on the offer to pile everyone into a rented van and just come to New York. Finding places to sleep for everyone. Giving up their bedroom to Debbie and Carl and making do on the inflatable in Justin's studio. Really. It's all a dance. You'd smile if you weren't so worried. 

Even when they bicker, there's an ease between them. A lowering of tension that you've rarely seen between them. Like they've both just given up fighting the inevitable and let the universe order things as it sees fit. It's a deep and comfortable breath, filling, long on the exhale. Something that you only slip into occasionally with Michael, cherish when it happens. And you thought it was a strong connection, with the two of you. 

"I am not going to Manhattan to go siteseeing like some retarded hick queen on vacation." Brian's voice was flat and bored, but there was a smile in hazel eyes. Currently they were being rolled away from Justin and Emmett, who were gearing up to spend the afternoon wandering around Times Square and squealling all over the sights. Emmett was waving some camera around, like this was his one and only shot at New York, New York. "They just got here. And I'm hungry. And I bet they are too."

"So go get dinner. We're going." Emmett was jumping up and down like he was five, nearly shaking Justin's arm right out of its socket, in his glee. And some how, several others had gathered round the Manhattan contingent, catching enthusiasm like it was a bad case of the sniffles.

"Fine. But the rest of us are going to Ricardo's." There was a general scurrying for jackets and shoes and scarves while they bickered, a clammour and noise accompanying it all, and several of them tiptoeing around, maybe a little worried, but you caught the look in Brian's eye, so you weren't worried.

"Asshole, that's my favorite." The self-satisfied smirk on Brian's lips said quite plainly that he knew. "Asshole."

"Well, too bad for you, then. You're going sightseeing, aren't you?" The tone was acidic, like a smirk, like grapefruit juice in the morning. Completely at odds at what you saw crouched behind hazel irises, trying hard not to be seen. Funny that no one else saw it. Well, no one beyond Justin, at least. Michael was too busy not looking to see it.

Everyone else stopped worrying, though, when Brian took home take out for the sightseers. For Justin. As if it wasn't even an option not to.

A new urgency enters someone's breathing, utterly distracting you from your thoughts. It's probably Justin's you think, since the faint and breathy noises seem a little too high pitched to be Brian's. They're still moving, even through all your introspection, and in a position you always loved just because it felt sentimental to you. The top, wrapped around his lover. Still. It's long past time to reel Michael in and rescue him, but before you can move your hand, your arm, anything, a sharp glitter gives away the soft secret that Brian's eyes are open. That he fucks Justin with his eyes open and that he's watching Justin intently, devouring details, breaths, sighs, the expression on his face. The way his lips part, his lashes flutter. God, now you're afraid to move, afraid to whisk Michael away from this, back into the safety of the bed. Afraid that Brian would see.

God, you're holding your breath, you're panting with Justin, swaying with the both of them, and you can see Brian's eyes close when he kisses Justin hard, like he's just met him for the first time. Like he's needing him for the first time. It's then that your arm shoots out and hauls Michael in fast, up hard against your chest so you can flee with him, safe in your embrace. And you're praying to God, any God that'll listen, that you're silent, that they're so caught up in each other that they won't notice the two of you, running. As the door's closing behind you, you can hear Justin's breathy moans, pushing him off his peak, and surprisingly, Brian's voice coiling richly, posessively, round the sweet silver core of Justin's.

And before you is Michael's face, devistated, but only for a bare breath or two. Your hands are framing it before you can blink, before you can take a breath, whisper his name. And the devistation fades swiftly away into something else entirely, and entirely all on its own. Maybe something a bit sheepish. Embarassed as hell. He's probably beet red, but it's too dark to really tell. "It's stupid," he's whispering softly. "But ..."

"But it still hurts to think about him loving more than one person." You whisper softly against his ear. Michael's nodding at that and pressing closer, nose tucked up alongside your adam's apple. But it makes a kind of sense. For years he's only loved one person and now ... and now. Now. Right. Now.

"At least it's someone I like?" he offers softly, shakily, mouthing the words against your throat. Sheepish. Definately sheepish. The relief you feel is so intense that your knees are like water for an instant and you have to cling to him just to keep yourself on your feet. And, thankfully, he's leading you back to bed. It needs to be talked about, absorbed and moved past, but not tonight, dammit. It's something to worry about tomorrow and you've both dealt with enough demons for one night.

  
  



End file.
